Computers in Libraries 2007: Day 2 – Comments in the Catalog: Community Interaction

Comments are:
mini reviews
any title in the catalog
a “blog for every book” – cool way to think about it!

Gave brief history about their comments project:
started taking book reviews by kids and teens
then they thought – hey, adults might like to do this (not too successful)
mentioned that they custom-created this – Sirsi doesn’t support it

Gave a demo of it

It’s a mash-up
bibliographic info
enriched content
patron comments
audio reviews – podcasts can be added in – cool! Quick 2-3 minute booktalk
amazon reviews are pulled in
has an rss feed for each title

Uses Amazon’s API to pull in recent amazon reviews on books

They have More Titles About section

Has an RSS feed for all customer comments

How’s it going?
most heavily used feature on their site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Especially popular with teens
5700 comments, 3000 users over the first 11 months

Maintenance:
pre-screened for language – smart
the “naughty word filter” – it’s an automated script
Title comes up most often in the filter (because of “tit”le)
batched every four hours and sent as an email message – 6-7 web services staff get those
click a link to hide a comment – within the email – to catch bad stuff
They remove the vowels in bad words with a note that says “edited for publication”